


It's alright to ask for help sometimes

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Batbrothers (DCU) Bonding, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Police Officer Dick Grayson, Protective Jason Todd, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: If Jason had known how bad crime in Bludhaven had been recently he would have gone to help much sooner, not when Dick was broken and bleeding on his apartment floor and couldn't even stand.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 21
Kudos: 770





	It's alright to ask for help sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was supposed to end a little differently, but frankly, my laptop is broken, I have to leave for a New Years wedding tomorrow, and I'm honestly a little sick of looking at it, so I hope that you enjoy what it turned out as, because though it's not what I wanted, I like it nonetheless x

If Jason had known when he woke up that morning how ridiculously complicated his day would be, he wouldn’t have even left the house.

He thought he’d be a good brother for once and go on a day trip to Bludhaven to check up on his dear older brother who Jason had heard through the grapevine was having a pretty rough time. Crime in the fair city of Bludhaven had reached new heights and Dick had been forced to work overtime to keep up with it all. So Jason thought he'd take a day off, leaving Kori and Roy in charge for the day, and pretend to go and visit Dick with concern for his welfare when he just wanted a vacation. But it's the thought that counts.

The parking lot of Dick's apartment complex was more-or-less empty apart from his police cruiser in the corner and his blue and black motorbike hidden under a tarp, blocked mostly by the cruiser, but Jason could still see the stripe of vivid electric blue stark against the darkness of the night.

When Jason looked up, he realized that the window on the top floor was open and faint light was jumping across the glass, so he at least didn't have to worry about Dick not being home, though him leaving his window open was a little strange.

He climbed the stairs, apologizing to the poor old lady he had nearly knocked over as she was leaving her apartment with her guide dog, and stuck his hands in his pockets to fight off the biting cold. It seemed like the heating wasn't working, and Jason could only hope that it would be warmer in Dick's apartment then it was in the stairwell.

Once he finally reached the top floor and the single door that lived on it, he knocked loudly on the wood, to no answer. Frowning, he knocked again, knowing that Dick was either home and not answering the door or _not_ home and someone had broken into his apartment through the window, but just as he was about to kick the door down in his worry, a faint, tired voice called out, "Who is it?"

"It's me, you ass," Jason retorted. "What are you doing, leaving me hanging like that? I thought you were dead, or something had happened to you."

"It's also possible that I was spending the night with a lady friend," Dick tried to joke, but even Jason could tell that it fell short. "There's a key to the door under the welcome mat. I assumed Bruce would be sending one of you over, and I'm too tired to get up and open the door for you."

Rolling his eyes and grumbling under his breath, Jason reached down and pulled away the welcome mat to reveal a stout brass key, on that would usually be found on a regular keyring, and which fit perfectly into the lock in the door. "You know," Jason said as he entered the dark interior of the apartment and turned to shut the door behind him. "Having the key under the mat is a really shitty and really obvious place to put it. What if someone else wanted to break in? That would be the first place they'd look, and you'd be a sitting duck in here. Why the hell is this damned place so dark?"

The last comment was said in frustration as Jason nearly tripped over something on the floor and he turned to the light switch by the door to light up the room, the small lamp by the window not really doing much in the way of illumination.

When Jason turned around, he expected to see Dick sitting at the kitchen table with his dinner, or on the couch in his PJ's, not crumbled beneath the window in his Nightwing uniform, holding his side as if holding himself together, coated in a thick layer of his own blood. "Holy mother of god," Jason couldn't help but say as he made it across the room in half a second and started gingerly looking Dick over like he was a fragile china vase that Jason was worried about smashing. "What the hell did you do?"

"Technically, I didn't do anything," Dick pointed out, voice a little breathy and Jason could only hope that he wasn't dealing with a punctured lung. "But as you can probably tell, I did, in fact, get my ass kicked,"

"Yeah, no kidding," Jason said cynically. He gently prodded at Dick's side with his palm and winced as Dick yelped and pulled away, hissing. "Sorry, that's definitely a fractured rib or two. What happened?"

Grumbling under his breath, Dick rolled over a little to expose his side for Jason, and Jason hurriedly undid the straps to his armour so he could prod further. "The crime here in Bludhaven is worse than Gotham ever was," Dick said through grit teeth. "That's why I made this place my city. But lately, the amount and severity of crimes have been taken up a notch, and I've been searching the streets every night to figure out who's doing it."

It annoyed Jason that he'd only heard about all this recently- if he had known about this sooner, he'd have been down at Bludhaven every day trying to help Dick instead of trying to figure out which of his bones were fractures on his floor. "And did you?"

"Yeah," Dick hissed as Jason pressed a little too hard. "Flamingo. Haven't had many dealings with him lately, but he was a real pain in my ass during my run as Batman for Bruce. He's hired some thugs, some weapons, some explosives, and is paying anyone he can to do his bidding."

"Which is all pretty shitty," Jason said. "But you're from Gotham. That sort of stuff is just an average day for us."

"I know, but the worst bit is the kidnapings," Dick grunted. "You have to find them quick, otherwise he gets bored."

Jason winced in sympathy as he pressed on Dick's dislocated shoulder, and he had to shut his eyes tight and turn his head away to keep himself from screaming. "Well, kidnappings are shitty, but nothing you can't handle, right?"

"Jason, he's a cannibal," Dick said like it was obvious,

Surprised, Jason choked on his spit, "Wow, yeah, you can't ever do anything the easy way, can you?"

"Say's the guy who crawled out of his own grave and then went on a murderous rampage just to prove a point," Dick retorted, and Jason's touch became a little less gentle as payback. "Ow! You can understand why the missing people thing is a bit of a bigger deal than it usually is, huh?"

"Sure can," Jason grunted as he had to hold Dick still when he pressed to hard on his fractured fingers and he pulled away, an aborted scream lodged in his tongue. "Sorry. Something's definitely broken. No saving the world for you any time soon."

"Very funny," Dick groaned as he tried to sit up straighter, but he ended up sliding further down the wall and relied mostly on Jason to support his weight. "But I've got work tomorrow, so as much as I would absolutely love to take a night off from Nightwing, Officer Grayson still needs to show up for his shift at 8-am tomorrow morning."

A strangled sound escaped Jason's throat as he thought about Dick, barely able to stand and almost bleeding through his eyeballs, stumbling into the B.P.D precinct and then completing a full shift. "Uh- it's gonna be a hard no on that one."

Dick huffed. "As if you could really stop me."

"Well, let me put it this way," Jason said easily. "One of us can move, and the other one of us can't. Let me tell you- the odds here aren't really in your favour, Dickie-bird."

"I can't _not_ go into work tomorrow, Jason. That's not how employment works." Dick retorted. "It's too late notice to call in sick, and I don't have any other excuse as to why I wouldn't be there."

Jason paused for a moment. Honestly, he'd never before stopped to consider how complicated his brother's life was. Most people in their line of work didn't have a separate job, and even if they did, it was reporting about themselves at newsagents or a boring desk job that they could just leave whenever. Even Bruce didn't have a hectic day job- running your own multi-million corporation was a lot different than being a police officer. Jason had never thought about how busy and strung out Dick must have been all the time, yet he always managed to do both jobs no matter how tired or sore he was, and he was always there when they needed him to be, no matter how much he wished he wasn't.

"You're spinning a lot of plates here, Golden Boy," Jason said quietly as Dick leant against him a little bit more and his raven hair tickled his bare chest. "No wonder you're so grumpy all the time."

"I'm not grumpy," Dick grumbled. "You're getting me confused for Tim, or Bruce."

"My apologies. We wouldn't want to do that would we?" Jason snorted. The mood turned sombre as Jason watched Dick's eyes flutter, his long eyelids casting shadows across his cheeks. It had been a while since Jason had seen Dick like this- quiet, reserved. "What's buzzing around in that thick head of yours, little birdie?"

Sighing, Dick nestled deeper against Jason, and to his own surprise, Jason let him. "Nothing, Little Wing. Nothing to worry about. Just tired."

"Just tired, huh?" Jason hummed, holding Dick a little closer to his side, careful not to jostle his already badly-injured body. "I don't know about you, but I was taught that in our line of work, being tired is something to worry about. It could get us killed, or worse."

"I'll be fine, Jason," Dick yawned. "I'm a seasoned expert. I can deal with a little exhaustion."

"If I had known how bad it was I would have come sooner," Jason said. "We've just been sitting pretty in Gotham when we could have been doing some real good here in your shit-stink city."

Though Jason couldn't see his face, he could feel Dick's frown. "It's not a shit-stink city, Jason. I just... I'm not done with it yet, that's all."

"Either way," Jason rested his chin on Dick's head. "You should get some rest now that you're home. This city can last a couple of hours without you, and if that Flamingo moron shows his face anywhere near the city in that time, I'll unload a couple of clips into his face, alright? Nothing's going to happen to you while I'm here to keep watch."

"A nap does sound pretty good," Dick admitted, and Jason couldn't help but huff out a laugh. "I'm gonna be honest with you Jay, I'm not too sure if I'll be able to make it to my bed. I'm a little scared to move."

"Then don't," Jason said easily. "We'll sleep right here, you and me. I don't mind being used as a pillow. I'm used to it."

Dick tilted his head up just far enough to raise an eyebrow at Jason. "And if someone comes in while we are? You didn't lock the door on your way in."

Reaching one hand to his side, Jason tenderly patted the heavy gun that always hung from his belt. "Then I'll make them regret it. You're fine, Dick. Just fall asleep already before this gets awkward and I change my mind."

Jason shook with the force of Dick's laugh, and he couldn't help but smile. His brother wasn't his brother if he wasn't in a good mood. "Alright, fine, but only because I'm too tired to fight you on it. But you promise to wake me up if you need me though, right?"

"Yeah, sure," Jason replied. "Now shut up. You're not going to get to sleep if you keep talking."

Dick laughed again then, and it was such a sweet sound that Jason wanted to bottle it up and keep it with him forever. "Alright, alright. Fine. Thanks, Jay."

Snoring came sooner than Jason would have expected, but when he glanced down at Dick's face, he was well and truly asleep, his body a heavyweight against Jason's side.

The good thing was that Jason was already on his phone when it rang, and the loud tone didn't have time to wake Dick up. "What do you want, Replacement?"

"How bad is it?" came Tim's thin reply, and Jason wasn't sure where he was, but the audio quality was terrible. Probably the cave, or the BatBurger store down the street.

Sparing another glance at Dick asleep against him, Jason replied, "Pretty bad. I mean, worse than you said it was. If I had known how bad it was I would have dragged Bruce's ass down here myself and forced him to help out. But it's too late for that now."

"Is there anything I can do?" Tim said around a mouthful of food- yeah, definitely the BatBurger. "I could probably get down there in a couple of hours, tomorrow morning at the most. I could bring some guys down- Harper, Steph, Kate. If I bring Harper then Cullen can babysit Dick while we patrol."

"Thanks for the offer, Timmytown, but I think we got this covered," Jason said. "Just do me a favour?"

"What's that?"

"Next time it gets this bad, don't wait a week until telling me about it, alright?"

There was a long, drawn-out pause from the other end of the line and Jason waited expectantly for Tim's answer, "Yeah," Tim said eventually. "Yeah Jason, I can do that. But you know that I only kept it from you because Bruce wouldn't let me tell anyone, yeah? It's wasn't my choice."

Cringing, Jason felt a little bad for the kid, and said gentler, "Yeah Tim, I know. But next time, disobey him, yeah? I do it all the time, it's easy, I promise."

"Sure Jay, I can do that," Tim laughed lightly. "You take care of him for all of us back home."

"No worries- he's not going anywhere any time soon," Jason replied and he hung up the phone in the midst of Tim's laughter. 

While his phone was still out, Jason opened Roy's contact and stared at the picture of him and Kori on either side of Roy while they kissed his cheeks for a moment longer than was necessary before sending him a message. _'Are you awake?'_

 _'I am now,'_ was Roy's reply. _'What's up Jaybird?'_

 _'There's been a change of plans,'_ Jason typed back. _'Pack some things for Kori and Lian and get down here as soon as you can. We're picking up patrol in Bludhaven for a little while.'_

 _'Making use of ourselves, I like it,'_ Roy replied. _'How's Dick?'_

 _'It depends on how busy Lian keeps him when she gets here,'_ Jason smiled as he typed it. _'See you soon?'_

 _'How quickly can Lian scoff a bowl of ice cream? How quickly can one of my arrows fly? How quickly can you get on our nerves?'_ Roy sent and Jason rolled his eyes at how cheesy it was.

He put his phone away just as Dick stirred, mumbled something under his breath, and slowly went back to sleep. Jason just wrapped his arms around him, and Dick melded into his touch.

Jason took a deep breath and settled in for a long, quiet night, with one gun trained on the front door like he promised it would be.


End file.
